We make no apology for returning to Vacheron’s box-fresh Harmony, one of the clear standouts of this year’s SIHH. As we said last week on our return from the fair, it’s a landmark piece in a landmark year – this year being the brand’s 260th anniversary.

The headliners were the chronograph and the ultra-thin grand complication, but there were also two dual timers, one at 40mm and one slightly smaller at 37mm, aimed at the growing ladies’ mechanical Vacheron Constantin replica watches market.

‘The ladies Harmony Dual Time was one of my personal highlights of the fair,’ says Faye Soteri, Watches of Switzerland’s specialist watch buyer. ‘Yes, with all those diamonds and that pale blue strap it’s a beautiful, glamorous piece of jewellery, but what makes it so much more than that is that Vacheron has engineered it so all the adjustments can be done via the crown, and either forwards or backwards.

‘Normally, adjusting a watch backwards is bad for the movement, but Vacheron has overcome that problem to make a hassle-free replica watches for women who frequently cross time zones. And it’s very collectable, too – each of the 500 pieces has a rotor engraved with a special motif for the brand’s 260th anniversary.’

Panerai placed a lot of its eggs in its Submersible basket this year. The Submersible is the diving watch extension to the brand’s evergreen Luminor line, and one of the genuine icons of the diving watch genre.

There were a number of additions, including an esoteric piece with a case made of carbotech, a carbon fibre-based material appearing in a watch for the first time. Peeking out from its shadow was PAM00615, a flyback chronograph.

‘I liked it for a couple of reasons,’ says Mark Toulson. ‘The first was the way Panerai replica uk has interpreted the chronograph, using one of its in-house movements. The watch has two central chronograph hands, one in blue for seconds, and one rhodium-plated for the chronograph’s minutes. It’s a very unusual but effective solution, because it means the watch can have a small, or running seconds, and a 12-hour counter, without neeing to crowd the dial with three subdials.

‘Then there’s how Panerai has built it. The case is titanium, making a big watch really quite light; the bezel is in contrasting matt black ceramic; and the chronograph’s push buttons are on the left so you can operate it with your thumb. It might look familiar at first glance, but look twice and it’s deceptively novel.’

Adding an annual calendar to the newly renamed Portugieser family was probably the most significant commercial move IWC replica sale made at SIHH this year, but arguably the most memorable and aesthetically charming piece in the new collection was this, a watch directly inspired by the original 1940 model that began the Portugieser story.

‘Everybody loves IWC’s Portugieser,’ says David LindsayLuxury Brands. ‘So when a piece like this comes along, collectors get very excited. The brand is only making 175 of them in red gold and 750 in steel, which isn’t many and they’ll be in high demand.

‘Those lucky enough to get hold of one will get a watch that looks historic, with that original logo on the dial, but behaves like a 21st century mechanical watch, thanks to IWC’s in-house hand-wound eight-day Calibre 59215.’

Montblanc’s none-too-subtle assault on the higher echelons of the fine watchmaking fraternity has already produced some spectacular pieces (last year’s Meisterstück Heritage Pulsograph and TimeWalker Chronograph 100 stand out in the memory), as well as some very accessible complications. The brand has been setting its stall on the maxim of ‘sharing a passion for fine replica watchmaking’, and so far it’s delivering.

‘Montblanc is on a roll, no doubt,’ says Damian Otwinowski, the store director of Watches of Switzerland, Regent Street, which has a Montblanc boutique. ‘This year it’s added the Heritage Chronométrie collection, a series of elegant, gentlemanly watches that really inspired me, and not just because they’re very competitively priced.

‘I love the story behind the Vasco de Gama limited editions, which include this annual calendar. As well as full date indication that only needs adjusting once a year, the watch has a moon phase showing the Southern Cross, which guided de Gama and his crew on their epic voyage of discovery at the end of the 15th century. This is a luxury replica watches that tells a story, which to my mind is a powerful, romantic combination that will be hugely successful.’